After DoctorKatherine Pulaski examines the unconscious Picard, it is found that his brainwaves are out of phase. Also, CounselorDeanna Troi detects very little emotion from him, and the shuttle he was in appears to be off-line.

Back en route to the Endicor system, Lieutenant CommanderData and LieutenantGeordi La Forge attempt to transfer power to the shuttle, but end up shorting out its circuits. In sickbay, Dr. Pulaski examines the other Picard in more detail. She is able to determine that he is alive but all other readings seem to fluctuate erratically. At Captain Picard's request, Pulaski attempts to revive him but instead almost kills him. It seems that the stimulant had the opposite effect.

A dark vision of the future

Meanwhile, La Forge and Data apply a power inverter to the shuttle to try and extract the logs from it. After an adjustment fails, Data suggests doing the opposite of the previous procedure, and the power comes back online. La Forge sees that the stardate on the shuttle's chronometer is six hours in the future and deduces that the other Picard must be from that time.

Pulaski is now successful in waking the future Picard, but he is disoriented and confused. The present Picard calls a staff meeting and La Forge shows him the logs he was able to retrieve from the shuttle. The visual log shows some sort of distortion, and the shuttle leaving the Enterprise, with Riker watching, then the Enterprise itself being destroyed. This is followed by an audio log by the Captain himself reporting on his witness to the loss of his ship. Despite this, the crew decides to remain on course as they realize that they may have already committed to a series of unalterable events.

Pulaski theorizes that as they move closer to the time in which the other Picard left, his internal body clock is realigning, and that when normal time intersects with the time in which he left, for that instant he would begin to function normally and there will be two Picards. Troi begins to feel emotion from the future Picard and realizes that his one wish is to leave the Enterprise.

"He desperately wants to leave this ship."

Still on course to Endicor but not far from a meeting with fate, the other Picard is now more coherent. The present Picard begins to question him, becoming frustrated at his counterpart's abandonment of the Enterprise. Troi tries to reason with Picard, saying that the other is afraid. Picard, now disgusted at his other self, denies all familiarity with him and leaves sickbay. Pulaski then tells Troi that she will relieve the present Picard of duty should his judgment become impaired.

Picard now debates with Commander Riker as to how and why the other Picard traveled though time, bringing up The Traveler and Paul Manheim's experiments with time. Riker suggests that Picard suppress his natural tendencies to try and save the Enterprise from decisions he may make and not to second-guess himself.

"That was personal."

Suddenly, without warning, an energy vortex appears beneath the Enterprise. In order to avoid being pulled in, La Forge has to hold the warp engines at 30% just to maintain their position. After being probed by the center of the vortex, Picard decides to stay and investigate, but then begins to worry that staying was the mistake which caused the destruction of the Enterprise. He decides to leave immediately, but trying to escape the vortex only results in the Enterprise being pulled further inside.

The warp engines now have to be held at warp 7 just to maintain their position. A Class-1 probe is launched, but is destroyed by the vortex. Almost immediately after, both Picards are struck by some sort of energy beam. When the beam strikes again and La Forge is forced to hold the ship at maximum warp, Riker suggests destroying the vortex. Troi deduces that the energy wants Picard and he must leave the ship to distract its attention, now realizing what the plan of his counterpart was.

Returning to his counterpart in sickbay, who is now much more aware of himself and his surroundings, he orders him released and follows him to shuttlebay two. The other Picard says that the entity recognizes Picard as the "brain" of the Enterprise and wants him, not the ship. Both Picards now argue as to what to do, with the present Picard trying to get as much information from the future Picard as he can before he gets to the shuttle.

"The cycle must end!"

With the future Picard unwilling to divulge any information and the present Picard now seeing that his counterpart is unable to alter his actions, locked into a single event and purpose, he realizes that it is not him that will enter the shuttle but his counterpart and that before he can move forward the cycle must end. In a moment of realization, he kills his counterpart with a phaser and returns to the bridge, calling Pulaski to the shuttlebay, accompanied by ChiefMiles O'Brien.

He now orders that a course be set for the center of the vortex with all the power the ship can muster, and that their position be held no matter what. With the Enterprise coursing through the vortex, Chief O'Brien witnesses the other Picard and his shuttle vanish from existence and seconds later the Enterprise bursts back out into normal space.

Memorable Quotes

"What went wrong? You know, don't you? What did you do? What happened? Why did you leave the ship? Don't turn away. Look at me. Picard! Look at me!"

- Picard, interrogating his future self

"Captain, I think this is one instance where you should suppress your natural tendencies."
"Oh, really?"
"One of your strengths is your ability to evaluate the dynamics of a situation, and then take a definitive preemptive step, take charge. Now, you're frustrated because you not only can't see the solution, you can't even define the problem."

- Riker and Picard

"Release him."
"Do you know what you're doing?"
"No. Release him."

- Picard and Dr. Pulaski

"Captain Picard! I can not allow you to leave, before we can go forward. The cycle must end."

- Picard, killing his future self with a phaser

"Well, they say if you travel far enough you will eventually meet yourself. Having experienced that, Number One, it's not something I would care to repeat."

Background information

Story and production

The original title was "Time to the Second", however, the final title would mathematically be written "Time²" (both titles referring to the power of 2 in reference to the two Picards). (Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion) In some episode listings in syndication, the original title is used.

Hurley intended this episode to lead into "Q Who". He explained, "The way it was originally designed, is that three episodes later they're going through space and all of a sudden Picard finds himself stuck in a shuttlecraft in a flash, and he sees the ship falling in to the top of the vortex and exploding. He thinks he's lost his mind; he doesn't know what's going on. Q appears and says, 'Hey, how ya doing?' Picard says, 'You caused that and all these other things?' Q says, 'Ah, well, surprised you didn't put it together earlier. Oh well, you are slow. Just a kind of calling card, something to do. Interesting, wasn't it?'" (Captains' Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages) The idea was nixed by Gene Roddenberry. Hurley complained that it added confusion to the ending. "Why would going into the vortex's center save you? It doesn't make sense. But it does if Q is pulling the strings." (Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion)

In a closing scene present in the script but not in the final episode, Riker invites Dr. Pulaski, La Forge, and Worf back to his quarters to make up for his omelet fiasco from the teaser and fixes them Alaskan stew, which agrees with La Forge and Dr. Pulaski, but disgusts Worf, who "would have preferred another omelet." [1]

In addition, the visual log showed that the El-Baz left the shuttlebay on stardate 42592.72, which was supposed to have been six hours after the shuttle was found, on stardate 42679.2. This discrepancy was clearly on behalf of the art department, as the dialog had previously indicated that the shuttlepod's clock read stardate 42679.5, which corresponded with the other spoken date reference.

Other Information

Both La Forge and Worf are sampled in the trance song Moebius by the trance artist Orbital. [2]

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